


Bitter Taste of Victory

by Adequately



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: City Elf Origin, Gen, Racism, Revenge, Slavery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-14
Updated: 2014-05-14
Packaged: 2018-01-20 02:12:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1492897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adequately/pseuds/Adequately
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She thought her hate for shems was gone, but apparently she has just enough left for a few more souls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bitter Taste of Victory

Riordan offers a different conclusion.

Anora interjects.

Alistair objects. Loudly.

Loghain remains silent, and everyone else is watching.

It’s almost laughably ironic, were it not for the fact that many of her neighbours – her family, her _kin_ – were lost. Halfway gone most like, and there was no guarantee there would even be safe passage. Sure, the cargo was valuable to the slavers, but things happen at sea. And really, they were _only_ elves. They could get more.

Knife ears.

Knife-eared bitches and whores, sons of nobodies. Worthless.

_Nothing._

She can barely tolerate this... this _stench_ of the overly privileged and self-righteous pompous bastards. _Shems_. Disgusting shems. Shems who can’t cook their own food or dress themselves without some additional help because they can’t be bothered to try. Shems who, if thrown into the wild, wouldn’t last a day because their money is useless to the cold and the wolves. She thought she was past this – Duncan, Alistair, Wynne, Morrigan, Leliana... All true friends, but...

When she brought up the Alienage and the slavers – with _proof_ , no less – Loghain admitted to it; didn’t even bat an eye. Someone in the crowd was shocked, but no one’s blood boiled like her own. And Zevran’s, of course, the only other elf in the room. Apparently the ends always justify the means to these people.

Except when they don’t. And they don’t.

All the shems watch. Expectant, cautious, reserved, doubtful, but most of all: scared.

What will the little elf do?

Why should we trust this nothing of a creature?

Wasn’t that the one that killed the former arl’s son? She should be caged – that _animal_.

She can see it in their eyes, goodness, she doesn’t even need to _look_. She can feel it – the hatred, the suspicion – what would some nobody elf know about anything.

They don’t give a damn. She could care less about Loghain – excellent general and hero or not, the man is either mad or drunk on power, and she has done enough to rally an army of various shapes and sizes against the Blight right under his nose. Not to boast (much), but she doesn’t need him. She can do it. She will. She _has_.

She makes her choice: off with his head.

Anora objects again. Near tears, she is. Her father to be executed before her, oh, the _horror_.

Yes, well perhaps if _her_ cousin was raped and _her_ father nearly shipped off to slavery alongside several others she grew up with, she might feel differently about Loghain. Perhaps if she was beaten and to be raped on her wedding day, only to be conscripted to avoid death, she’d understand the added insult of leaving the Denerim elves to slavers after a purge. Maybe if her father left her and all the other Grey Wardens alongside the king – _her_ husband – to die after only just becoming one herself and having to amass an army while barely grasping the basics of her new role, she could be more calm and reasonable about this. Maybe if she had to kill her way across all of Ferelden and back and still have humans look at her like she was some piece of trash, she’d see why her father wasn’t needed for this Blight. Maybe if she weren’t so busy being a privileged spawn, she’d get it, but alas. It’d be too much to ask from noble humans.

Funny they’re referred to as nobility when they lack the principle for it.

She readies her blade. Loghain kneels before her, any glint of life or hope for the future, any certainty he’d known, gone from his eyes. He meets her gaze, even, unafraid, and for a moment – much to her chagrin – she hesitates. No one can see it, thankfully, but she pauses before she raises her blade. She’s killed plenty of people so far in her life, but no one waited for her to do it. She squeezes the hilt of her blade, and bites the inside of her cheek. She wants this. It’s right. It’s _justified_.

He deserves it.

_I want this._

She swings, with strength, finesse, and throws in a little bit of obvious gusto, for the nobles and Anora, making sure she gets some of the blood, or that some of it goes in her direction – add a little extra drama for the shems. It’s not beneath her at this point, given that Anora left her for dead once and turned on her earlier in the Landsmeet. Sick as it sounds, it’s almost as satisfying Vaughan. Almost – Loghain doesn’t beg.

Anora is covered in her father’s blood. She’s still, shocked likely, and stares at his headless body, horrified by the pool of blood advancing at her feet. Eamon motions for a guard to collect the corpse and head. The room is silent – the air hitting a still like a stone wall and the elf with a warm blade stares at all the shems, one by one, dead in the eyes – defiant and challenging. _There_. Even if they did side with her, they don’t truly respect her. They just need her. She’s an end to justify the means – someone has to end the Blight so they can go back living comfortably while she goes back to rot in what’s left of the Alienage after a raid, a plague and slavers. They don’t care who, they just want results.

She throws Anora to Alistair – despite her great distrust of the woman, she has some uses they will find helpful. For now, anyways. Give her a few weeks to a month without a Blight and she could unravel any secrets of the nobles and maybe blackmail them around Alistair’s finger or her own, should they step out of line – they always have dirty little secrets, it’s only a matter of finding them and using them at the right time. Threats work too. Anora is possibly unable to bear children, based on a letter from Eamon to Cailan she... found. Her usefulness is timed.

She offers a steely glance to the queen as a warning; _step out of line and you will follow your father_. She may not like being married to the spitting image of her recently deceased husband, but she’ll have to deal with it. Alistair _will_ be king. She trusts him, and he knows her – he listened to the men throw lewd comments her way, talk down on her, saw the hellhole where she lives and knew how she came to the Wardens. He respects her, and soon will respect her kind. He has to. She needs him to.

Her fellow Warden rallies the people. He’s a better speaker than he knows, she thinks, and reminds herself to tell her friend of this, should he doubt himself again. Before long, she heads out the double doors – shoulders back, head held high, air ice cold around her, and stepping through Loghain’s blood, leaving a trail behind her.

She’ll get the job done and show them. All of them.

**Author's Note:**

> City Elf Origin is my favourite. The discrimination is nicely set up within the first bits of gameplay, and stayed with me throughout. That being said, no one really says anything at the Landsmeet regarding the slavers, and it drove me absolutely mad. Interacting with Anora is also interesting - I respect the woman to some degree and absolutely hate her in other ways. I wanted to write an angrier Warden - cold and calculating, mixed with some desperation and misfortune.


End file.
